Category Archives: 02

trees

From this angle she could barely see the top of the newcomer’s house over Jana Forest, this Pitch Darkly she’s heard so much about lately. Laughed at by other vampires in her husband’s bar so loudly that rumors have it he’s already moved away out of embarrassment — looking for land on the west side of the continent to settle down instead. But maybe the rumors are confusing recent Bena exile Barry X. Vampire with Pitch, Phyllis Phox considers, for Pitch was definitely still a vampire, or at least a wannabe one according to Ben. So goofy, though(!) Perpetually blood-splattered to name just one error: proper vampires do not roam about town with blood stains on their elegant, primly pressed clothes. She’d passed by his house several times now on her walks into the hills surrounding the town. No one there yet, and stuff that should be inside it according to her reckoning still outside cluttering up the yard. Good Bena has a privacy screen separating him from the rest of town(!). So that’s another strike against this Pitch Darkly fellow. Sloppiness in attire and decor all around. He won’t make it here — there.

Phyllis then looks just above Pitch’s disorganized spot at Mother’s Place perched on the now hidden green hill dominating Bena from the southeast. Polar opposite to the great castle out in the northeast corner of the sim, she knows (but, importantly, *not* the Northeast Castle this time ’round: that appellation still belongs solely to Hilling’s similarly positioned citadel). And the Whore Mother within, tended to by that poor, pitiful child of hers. Always forget the name, Phyllis Phox ruminates. Everyone just calls her kid. That’s what she answers to most of the time.

Katy, Phyllis Phox then remembers. Maybe she can shorten it to Kate when she grows up and, following Barry X. Vampire and others’ lead, forget about this place and move on. College is sometimes a turning point. But the Great Mother is now pushing for Bena to have its own, defeating the purpose in her mind. You go to college to get *away* from home. She certainly did.

She then looks more southward and tries to spot the tiny island in the middle of Danshire adorned until just several days back with a shack much like she grew up in — eerily so, she understands — with a mom tending to 3 other kids most of the time as well. And she had all the color drained out of her skin to blend in better at Bena after the marriage to her husband Ben, then the powerful werewolf leader before the Vampire Coup and the name change from Bennington.

Much to digest about town history, as it’s turning out(!).

No luck here. A little further up Queck Hill should do the trick.

Yes. There ’tis.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0018, 0209, Benangatron+, Corsica

another return

Rocky Racco sat in front of his typewriter waiting for a story to happen but it never did.

He went to the theatre to try to envision a play being acted out onstage, perhaps an interpretation of the novel he couldn’t start. Didn’t work.

What *was* it about this place, Old Ben — Bennington — but now New Ben: Bena? Creativity seemed to be sapped from the town. Before going back to his cave-home and sleeping the rest of the day for lack of anything else to do, Rocky decided to go visit Ben at the town bar, the center of it all down through the years, gluing old and new together to make something most likely not quite as good as either.

“Creative drought, eh?” he responded to Rocky’s confession of writer’s block. “You know what I do when something like that happens to me? Go fishing.” He looks to the large castle out in the water with this, tucked away in the northeast corner of the sim. Quite similar in this positioning to the Northeast Castle of the Hilling sim featured in the last section of this here photo-novel, perhaps too much so. There be the answers, Rocky realized, picking up on Ben’s accent in his mind. He’d have to rent a boat.

“One more thing, laddie, before you be renting that boat,” Ben further advised. “You be also seeking a double to this town, but not Hilling. Don’t go back to Hilling.” Rocky was thinking: I’ve never been to Hilling and don’t even know where that is. Maybe that was his problem. He didn’t have enough backstory himself to go off and start creating microcosms of reality through books and plays.

He recalls… something about a hotel. Yes. I can start there.

“Hello, anyone… here?”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0018, 0208, Benangatron+, Corsica

the one

“You think he’ll go back?” asked Philip Strevor to his partner in crime Marion Harding, wearing his Gaeta V shirt for this particular shoot.

“Maybe.”

“He has to,” quickly came the reply. “He has to find that demon that killed our little girl.” His voice was becoming anxious, murderous even. Philip had not smoked any pot to take the edge off the racier drugs he was currently imbibing. Marion, in contrast, only did the marijuana. So much here! Mixed in with red wine per usual; balancing the red and the blue as he liked to say. Easier said than done. Like tragedy and comedy in life as a whole.

“Philip,” Marion tried to calm him, “have you ever thought about how we got from Gaston to here. I mean, *really* thought about it. The chain of events that leads from one to the other.” He looks around, at the other hippies milling about the place. Well, *he’s* a hippie. Philip definitely was the odd man out in this bunch. So much pot, so much booze. But the racier drugs were few and far apart. This wasn’t Philip’s place in the end. Corsica really wasn’t his continent. Gaeta V suited him better. But Capitol City and its Capitol Hill were no more. Returned to the swamp they arose from. Flattened back to the pancake prairie it started as. Pancakes… Laboratories. Marion suddenly had an idea.

“Philip, how would you like to return to Gaeta V? Just for a bit.”

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Eddison/242/165/27

—–

—–

I’m just going to have this red wine but you eat as many pancakes as you like, Philip.”

“Oh *goody*.”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0018, 0207, Corsica, Gaeta V, Southwest, Twin Peaks, Twin Peaks Laboratory

twinned

“I’m not sure I’m going back to this Bena, Mary. I was laughed at in the bar! And — I miss you.”

Pitch’s wife Mary, as usual around any body of water, was reeling reeling reeling them in. Perch always. It was the only fish around.

“If you don’t go back,” she explained patiently, “then you’ll never find out what happened. Keep close to Rebl. She’ll guide you through.”

“How about — *you*? Can you come as well? It’s the same house we have — had in Collagesity. Still have, except it lays empty there.” He picked at the laces of his boots. “Just like here.”

“We must choose Pitch Darling.”

Darkly, though Pitch, then realized who he was talking to. And he knew what the choosing meant. Collagesity or Corsica? It could come down to that.

Mary suddenly switched over to the other side for more action.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0018, 0206, Corsica, Southwest

not what they seem

There are so many stories to tell about Corsica, as it’s turning out. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do an adequate job. How to match the potential of the continent??

Always the peaks not too far away, always surprising me with their appearance. Peakology to complement the already established Sinkology? It might be so.

I’ve hardly begun to scratch the surface. Better get back to Bena…

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0018, 0205, Corsica, Southwest

Bens

He looked out the window at the red light just in the bay. “Everyone knows your bar here is basically the center of Bena, Ben. Ha! Even your name begins Bena — hadn’t thought of that.”

Ben Wolf’s thought of it. “Nice of you to say.”

“Nice in the day here — with no one around,” returns Barry X. Vampire, the X added only this morning after his first beer. He explained to Ben that he’s keeping the Vampire last name, even though he’s giving up vampiring [sic?]. The “X”, then, refers to his *ex* vampire status. But keeping the Vampire last name might be handy if he ran into one of those nasty nests, like he use to be a part of when Bena was plain ol’ ugly Bennington. He turned to Ben at the time. “Remember those days?”

Ben Wolf remembered those days. Still the town starting with his name. Of course he remembers. He ran the show even more back then.

“Where will you go?” asked Ben back in the present, wishing Barry would not cover the tip jar with his arm. Oh well — no one here right now to tip; Barry certainly never does. All the vampires are nighty night during the day. Except for Barry, because he’s an ex and all. As of yesterday. Sold his coffin to some goofy joe named Pitch Darkly. Gotta place just in back of the cemetery now. Ben makes a mental note to walk back there sometime soon and check it out. Close to the Mother Place. Maybe too close.

“Thought you might help me with that, Ben,” answers Barry to Ben’s present question. “I like Corsica. I want to stay with the peaks and all. Like, you know, Mother’s Place is perched upon. He pivots in what he thinks is the correct direction toward the pivotal house.

“I told you not to mention that place in here. It gets the vampires all excited.” Then Ben, again, realizes it’s day. “Okay, okay, I suppose this *one* time it’s okay to talk about the Great Mother.”

“And peaks in general.”

(to be continued?)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0018, 0204, Benangatron+, Corsica

mothers 02

Kate McCoy tries to find the unicorn where she saw it in the bushes.

A sudden call from the house in that scary, shrill voice, so familiar. “Katy! Katy Kidd! Come help your mother get out of bed and take her shower!”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0018, 0203, Benangatron+, Corsica

mothers

“Do you see it out there Pitch? Come here please.” Kate McCoy, moved on from her late husband Jack and the Hilling sim as a whole, waved Baker/Pitch over to see if he could eyeball the unicorn as well. He stopped playing the piano and singing track 3 of the Platinum Prune suite of songs, popular in Bena and the surroundings these days.

“Nothing,” he said after moving to the window to also stare out at the yard. “Trick of the leaves,” he suggested correctly. But Kate knew it was more. Back to business.

—–

“I’ve decided I’m going to play my mother here in Bena. The Mother of Vampires, kind of like the Mother of Dragons but also different. Which wasn’t real either — cats instead,” Kate McCoy tried to explain about her new role.

“Um hum,” Pitch Darkly exclaimed from the couch. “And what of Garfield, um, *Hatfield*? Will he remain, say, in the attic of the house? He’s a big orange (cartoon) cat, after all. Nothing that a village full of vampires would have.”

“I suppose he’ll have to,” opined Kate McCoy, finger to lip in thinking mode. “And yourself? Did Rebl set you up with your own coffin? Have you interacted with anyone in the community proper yet?”

“Just Barry,” Pitch responded about the used coffin salesman he dealt with online, who just so happens to be from Bena and is giving up his own vampire gig here. So Pitch is, in essence, replacing Barry. Interesting.

“Lindens,” Kate then utters, and shakes her head. “Taking away the few good men — vampires — we have. Leaving us with only Lemons.”

Pitch became confused. “But — Lemons are good. Aren’t they?” Kate McCoy just glared at him.

(to be continued?)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0018, 0202, Benangatron+, Corsica

Corsica(na)

Looks like Pitch Darkly is all ready to move in to his newly relocated house in Bena. Just hasn’t done it yet.

I’m picking up on: Barry. Barry is missing?

Better start in the graveyard. If I can just get over this — chasm.

Easy peasy! Now… who will I turn into tonight originally? Barry?

Ah, let’s just go with Pitch. He begins poking around while the transformation continues from Baker…

—–

*This* is what I’m missing. A coffin! Vampires must have coffins to hide out for the night. And something about native soil. He should study all this more, him being a vampire and all. How does he exist and breath and live? What does he eat and drink? What kind of crowd does he mingle with? Other vampires? Not likely — at this stage. Too naive; would be called out (!).

So much more to learn about vampiring. Is that even a word (for instance)?

It’s not a bad fit. If I only had something to read late at night, to kill the time or just help me get to sleep. Wait — I don’t *need* sleep. Not at night. It’s during the day — yes, I remember. I’m suppose to hunt at night. For food, for blood. This is a daytime hangout. I’ll have to switch all my hours around to get by in this place(!). This Bena. Still — it’s night now. I can still go over to the public library and see what books they have. Okay, if this town is full of vampires, would businesses be open at night instead of the day? Would the public library be open? Maybe, even if not, I could just pass through the door, being a vampire and all.

—-

He smartly decides to ring up Bena lawyer wannabe Rebl to ask how to proceed with the assimilation into the community. Good idea. The first thing she recommended upon hearing Pitch’s explorations so far was: *don’t* use other vampires’ coffins. Get your own!

So he went online to the SL Marketplace and picked up a cheap used one from some dude named Barry.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0018, 0201, Benangatron+, Corsica

different tracks

“Ahh. *There* she is, Rules of Rose. Hitting the tracks again.” She tries to call over once more, a little softer than before, knowing the futility of it. “Tessa. Tessa, honey. It’s me. Your Aunt Ruby.”

“She still can’t see or hear you,” states elven fairy Rules of Rose beside her. “It’s — different over here.”

Ruby Fantasie folds her hands over her lap, leaning back. “I know.” She sighs.

“It’s because of me.” Rules of Rose puts her hands to her eyes, beginning to cry (again). “I’m so sorry *sob*”.

Tessa makes her way back into the heart of the cave system, seeing/hearing nothing.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0017, 0217, End of Time+